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France has long been considered a center for European art and music. The country boasts a wide variety of indigenous folk musics, as well styles played by immigrant from Africa, Latin America and Asia. In the field of classical music, France has produced a number of legendary composers, while modern pop music has seen the rise of popular French rock, hip hop and pop performers.
| Music of France | ||
|---|---|---|
| History (Timeline and Ars Nova, Basque | Chanson, Burgundian School | |
| Brittany | Rock and Corsica | Troubadors, Motet, Minuet |
| Raï and Hip hop | ||
| Awards | ||
| Charts | ||
| Festivals | Montreaux Jazz Festival, National anthem | "La Marseillaise" |
| Overseas music | ||
| French Guiana - French Polynesia - Martinique and Guadeloupe - Mayotte - New Caledonia - Réunion - St. Pierre and Miquelon - Tahiti - Francophone regions | ||
| Algeria - Belgium - Burkina Faso - Burundi - Cameroon - Central African Rep. - Comoros - Congo-Brazzaville - Congo-Kinsasha - Côte d'Ivoire - Djibouti - Haiti - Louisiana - Luxembourg - Madagascar - Mali - Mauritius - Morocco - Quebec - Rwanda - Senegal - Seychelles - Switzerland - Togo - Tunisia - Vanuatu | ||
As Europe experienced a wave of roots revivals, France found its regional cultures reviving traditional music. Brittany, Limousin, Gascony, Corsica and Auvergne were among the regions that underwent a popularization of folk music. European music flourished most in the Romantic Movement during the 18th century.
Main article: Basque music
The Basques are a unique ethnic group, unrelated to any other in France and with uncertain connections abroad. The main form of Basque folk music is called trikitrixa, which is based on the accordion and includes popular performers like Joseba Tapia and Kepa Junkera. There is also choral music, as well as Basque stars that sing in Spanish or other languages like Luis Mariano and Music of Limousin
Limousin is known for its violin music, as well as the chabrette bagpipe. Eric Montbel is the biggest star of Limousin folk, while Françoise Etay, Jean Pierre Champeval, Olivier Durif, Valentin Clastrier, Pascal Lefeuvre and Music of Corsica
Corsican polyphonic singing is perhaps the most unique of the French regional music varieties. Sung by male trios, it is strongly harmonic and occasionally dissonant. Modern groups include Canta u Populu Corsu, I Muvrini, Tavagna and Music of Gascony
One of the biggest stars of the French roots revival was Perlinpinpin Folc, whose Musique Traditionelle de Gascogne was a popular release that sparked interest in the traditional music of Gascony. The Music of Auvergne
Central French bagpipe and hurdy-gurdy music is popular, having been recently given new life by performers like Eric Montbel, Philippe Prieur, Gilles Chabenat and Jean Blanchard.
Auvergne is known for cabrette bagpipes, and its legendary master Joseph Ruols. This is the instrument that became the basis for bal-musette music, which arrived in Paris by 1880 as a result of Auvergnat migration. The influence of Antoine Bouscatel led to bal-musette incorporating the Italian accordion, which soon came to dominate the music. This is the period that produced internationally known masters like Léon Chanal, Emile Vacher and Music of Brittany
Uniquely Celtic in character, Breton folk music has had perhaps the most successful revival of its traditions, partially due to the result of Lorient, France's most popular music festival.
The documented history of Breton music begins with the publication of Barzaz-Breizh in 1839. A collection of folk songs compiled by Hersart de la Villemarqué, Barzaz-Breizh helped keep Breton traditions alive.
Couple de sonneurs, consisting of a bombarde and biniou, is usually played at dance music and has an older vocal counterpart called kan ha diskan. Unaccompanied call and response singing was interspersed with gwerz, a form of ballad.
Probably the most popular form of Breton folk is the bagad pipe band, which features native instruments like biniou and bombarde alongside drums and, in more modern groups, biniou braz pipes. Modern revivalists include Kevrenn Alre Bagad and Bagad Kemper.
Alan Stivell is perhaps the most influential folk-rock performer of continental Europe. After 1971's Renaissance of the Celtic Harp, Breton and other Celtic traditional music achieved mainstream success internationally. With Dan Ar Bras, he then released Chemins de Terre (1974), which launched Breton folk-rock. This set the stage for stars like Malicorne in the ensuing decades.
Pure folk of modern Brettany include harpists like Anne-Marie Jan, Anne Auffret and Myrdhin, while singers Kristen Nikolas, Andrea Ar Gouilh and Yann-Fanch Kemener have become mainstream stars. Instrumental bands, however, have been the most successful, including Gwerz, Bleizi Ruz, Strobinell, Sonerien Du and Medieval music
Some of the earliest manuscripts with polyphony are from 10th century French cities like Chartres and Tours. A group of musicians from the Abbey of St. Martial in Limoges are especially important, as are 12th century Parisian composers like Leonin and Perotin, from whence came the earliest motets. Secular music in medieval France was dominated by troubadours, jongleurs and trouveres, who were poets and musicians known for creating forms like the ballade and lai. The most famous was Adam de la Halle.
Main article: Motet
Motets arose in the 13th century, out of the Notre Dame organum tradition of Leonin and Perotin. Upper-register voices were added to Troubadour
In the 12th century, travelling noblemen and musicians called troubadours began wandering southern France. Inspired by the Code of Chivalry, troubadors composed and performed vernacular songs. Provence was the region with the most troubadours, but the practice soon spread north and aristocrats like Adam de la Halle became the first Ars nova and Ars subtilior
Two of the major developments in music in the 14th century occurred on France. The first was the ars nova, the new, predominantly secular music which began with the publication of the Roman de Fauvel, and culminated in the rondeaux, ballades, lais, virelais, motets, and single surviving mass of Guillaume de Machaut, who died in 1370. Philippe de Vitry, also a representative of the ars nova, invented an improved system of musical notation and may have been the first composer of the isorhythmic motet. The other important development was the extremely complex and sophisticated art of secular song which flourished in Avignon at the very end of the 14th century (see ars subtilior).
Main article: Renaissance music
The move of the center of musical activity from Paris to Burgundy defines the beginning of the musical Renaissance in France. The political instability under weak kings, and continued dismemberment and aquisition of territory by the English during the Hundred Years War all contributed to moving musicians east.
French musical domination of Europe ended during the Renaissance, and Flemish and Italian musicians became more important. Later French composers of the Renaissance include Nicolas Gombert, Pierre de La Rue, Pierre de Manchicourt, Claude Goudimel, Pierre Certon, Jean Mouton, Claudin de Sermisy, and Clément Janequin. The French chanson became popular during this time, and was exported to Italy as the Chanson
The first important composer of chansons was Guillaume de Machaut, with later figures in the genre including Johannes Ockeghem and Josquin Desprez. Guillaume Dufay and Gilles Binchois wrote so-called Burgundian chansons, which were somewhat simpler in style, while Claudin de Sermisy and Clément Janequin were composers of so-called Parisian chansons which abandoned the formes fixes (as Josquin had also done) and were in a simpler, more homophonic style (many of these Parisian works were published by Pierre Attaingnant). Later composers, such as Orlando de Lassus, were influenced by the Italian madrigal.
Main article: Burgundian School
Composers who worked at the courts of the Dukes of Burgundy are known collectively as the Burgundian School; some of the principal names associated with this school are Guillaume Dufay, Gilles Binchois, Hayne van Ghizeghem and Antoine Busnois. They wrote vernacular secular music in a clear, simple, melodic style, principally rondeaux, but also Latin sacred music, such as motets and cantus firmus masses.
Main article: Baroque era
With the arrival of Calvinism, music was greatly simplified, at least in the parts of France subject to Calvinist influence. In strictly Calvinist areas, the only musical expression allowed was singing of French translations of the Psalms, for instance those written by Goudimel (who was killed in the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in 1572). Starting the with the 17th century, Italian and German opera was the most influential form of music, though French opera composers like Balthasar de Beaujoyeaux, Jean Philippe Rameau and Jean Baptiste Lully made a distinctive national style characterized by ballet, spoken dialogue and a lack of Italian recitative arias.
The Baroque period saw a flourishing of harpsichord music. Influential composers included Jacques Champion de Chambonnières and François Couperin. Jean Philippe Rameau, a prominent opera composer, wrote an influential treatise on musical theory, especially in the subject of harmony; he also introduced the clarinet into his orchestras.
Main article: French opera
The first French opera may be Akébar roi du Mogol, first performed in Carpentras in 1646. They were followed by the team of Perrin and Cambert, whose Pastoral in Music, performed in Issy, was a success, and the pair moved to Paris to produce Pomone (1671) and Les Peines et les Plaisirs de l'Amour (1672).
Jean-Baptiste Lully, who had become well-known composing ballets for Louis XIV, began innovating a French version of the Italian opera seria, a kind of tragic opera. His first was Cadmus from 1673. Lully's forays into operatic tragedy were accompanied by the pinnacle of French theatrical tragedy, led by Corneille and Racine.
Main article: Classical music era
During the French Revolution and the subsequent Napoleonic wars, the Paris Conservatory was established and foreigners like Frederic Chopin flocked to France. One of the major French composers of the time, and one of the most innovative composers of the early Romantic era, was Hector Berlioz.
In the late 1800s, pioneers like Georges Bizet, Jules Massenet, Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy revitalized French music. The subsequent 20th century saw neo-classical music flourish in France, especially composers like Albert Roussel, Erik Satie and Les Six, a group of musicians who gathered around Satie. Later in the century, Olivier Messiaen and Pierre Boulez proved influential and incorporated non-native influences.
Main article: French popular music
French popular music in the 20th century included singers like superstar Edith Piaf and more art-house musicians like Brigitte Fontaine. American and British rock and roll was also popular in the 1950s and 60s, and indigenous rock achieved some domestic success. Punk rock, heavy metal and, especially, electronic music, found some French listeners. In the latter genre, the French electro-pop band Air and techno artist Laurent Garnier found a wide audience in the late 1990s and early 2000s, both locally and internationally. Algerian rai also found a large French audience, especially Cheb Khaled. Moroccan chaabi and gnawa is also popular. American hip hop music was exported to France in the 1980s, and French rappers and DJs, like MC Solaar, also had some success.
Main article: French rock
At the end of World War 2, French musicians were becoming wildly experimental and diverse. Popular musicians from the era included romantics like Edith Piaf, politicized singers like Leo Ferre, morbid sex symbols like Juliette Greco, elegant stars like Charles Aznavour and experimental, often humorous, performers like Jacques Brel and Georges Brassens.
In the 50s, rock and roll mad some inroads to France, and produced stars like Johnny Hallyday, but the most popular field was the ye-ye girls like Sylvie Vartan. These were popular female teen idols, and included Francoise Hardy, who was the first to write her own songs.
Though rock was not extremely popular until the 70s, there were innovative musicians in France as the psychedelic rock trend was peaking worldwide. Jean-Pierre Massiera's Les Maledictus Sound (1968) and Aphrodite's Child's 666 were the most influential.
In the early 70s, Breton musician Alan Stivell (Rennaissance de l'Harpe Celtique) launched the field of French folk-rock by combining psychedelic and progressive rock sounds with Breton and Celtic folk styles.
Main article: Progressive rock
France became one of the leading producers of prog rock in the 1970s. Afficionados worldwide were enamoured by recordings like Ange's Le Cimetiere des Arlequins, Pulsar's Halloween, Shylock's Ile de Fievre, Atoll's L'Araignee-Mal and Eskaton's Ardeur. Most well-known, however, may be the band Magma, whose 1970 debut, Magma, used free jazz and lyrical references to science fiction. The band later used Indian and electronic styles.
In the 1980s, French rock spawned a myriad of styles, many closely-connected with other Francophone musical scenes in Switzerland, Canada and especially Belgium. Pub rock (Telephone), psychobilly (La Muerte), pop punk (Les Thugs), synth pop (Telex) and punk rock (Bijou) were among the styles represented in this era.
Punk rock had arisen in the 1970s and continued into the next decade, perhaps best represented by Oberkampf and Metal Urbain. 80s progressive rock peaked early in the decade, with Dun's Eros, Emeraude's Geoffroy and Terpandre's Terpandre, all from 1981, representing the genre's pinnacle.
Main article: French hip hop
Hip hop came from New York City, invented in the 1970s by African Americans. By 1983, the genre had spread to much of the world, including France. Almost immediately, French performers (musicians and breakdancers) began their career, including Thony Maskot, Frank II Louise, Max-Laure Bourjolly, Farid Berki, Traction Avant and Black Blanc Beur. Popularity was brief, however, and hip hop quickly receded to the French underground.
Paname City Rappin (1984, by Dee Nasty) was the first album released, and the first major star was MC Solaar, whose 1991 Raï
France has long had a large Algerian minority, a legacy of long-time colonial domination of that country. Algerian immigrants brought their own music to France, most especially including raï. Originating in the lower-class slums of the city of Oran, raï shot to the top of the French charts in 1992 with the release of Cheb Khaled's Khaled. Later performers added influences from funk, hip hop, rock and other styles, creating most notably a pop genre called lover's raï. Performers include Rachid Taha and List of Francophone male singers
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